Breakout

With his score for the 1975 Charles Bronson revenge thriller Breakout, Jerry Goldsmith further embraces the Spanish influences bubbling under so many of his scores throughout the decade, pushing castanets, guitars and xylophone to a new position of prominence within his arrangements. It's an approach that teeters on xenophobic cliché, but Goldsmith never emphasizes the music's Spanish elements too heavily -- instead, Breakout pivots on traditional orchestral flourishes and even makes room for synthesizers, foreshadowing the direction the composer would pursue in the decade to follow. But if Breakout sounds like a turning point in Goldsmith's career, think again -- too often its melodies fall flat and its experiments fail to jell, yet if nothing else, it points to better, more exciting music still to come. ~ Jason Ankeny